I've been steering steadily away from bagged tea, but this was a surprise addition to a swap, so I decided to give it a try.

After my first sip, I really wish I hadn't! Either this tea is revolting or some kind of cross-contamination occurred. It's incredibly bitter, and has a seafood aftertaste. Yeah, you read that correctly - I think it's salmon. Which is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Teabag Autopsy

In an attempt to make it remotely palatable I added Sugar in the Raw and milk. Over the seafood, I can now taste elements of the Earl Grey flavors, but they just can't break free of the fish.

Since I just can't manage to drink the rest of this, I decided to open up the teabag and see if anything was remotely recognizable. As you can see... nope. It looks more like... well, as I've already grossed you out with the fish, I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Suffice it to say that I cannot identify any leaf-like structures in the... substance inside the bag.

So, to wrap up, this was absolutely horrible. To drive that home, Mei-Mei decided to inspect it while I was busy typing. Usually she'll try to sample just about anything -not that I'll let her, but she still tries! Mei-Mei was a feral kitten when she was rescued, so she has no qualms about anything edible, drinkable, or even resembling food. This? She actually turned her nose up at it. Good decision, cat. Very good decision.

Mei-Mei

Prominent Notes: Seafood, bergamot

Aftertaste:Seafood

Overall: Dump it! Dump it now!

And yes, Mei's name is a nickname on Firefly. I believe it means "little sister" in Mandarin. She totally embodies that! Akasha's is from Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned. They were about 6-7months old when we adopted them, so we just found nerd-esque names as close as possible to the ones they'd gotten used to: ChiangMai and Acosta.

3 comments:

I really like this tea in its full-leaf sachet form, especially since I used to get it free as a barista. I always recommended it because it has a hint of lavender. The funny thing is, with steamed soy, the London Fog tea latte of this tea smells just like Froot Loops!

Hey! So I showed up here again to see if you had tried the TAZO Orange Chiffon. TAZO describes it as an Earl Grey with an orange twist (literally; it has orange peel), so I thought you might be interested at some point. I got it at Target.

Tea for Two

I'm a writer, educator, costumer, craft nerd... okay, to be completely honest, I'm a bit of an all-around nerd! I'm in my early thirties, and while my heart calls the Pacific Northwest home, I currently reside in Dallas, Texas with my husband and our two rescue kitties: Mei-Mei and Akasha.